


The Nature of Daylight

by DiazTuna



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Swan Queen Supernova, alternative s7, canon divergent-ish, non-linear time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-06-24 02:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15620589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiazTuna/pseuds/DiazTuna
Summary: There is an order to things, a time for them. Emma is just trying to set things right again.Set after S4 finale and onwards.





	The Nature of Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> This story owes a huge debt to Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang and the movie adaptation Arrival. The quote below is from the movie.
> 
> A huge thanks to the group of nerds that read this story as I wrote it (and later exposed me) and kept me writing. You know who you are.
> 
> [Here is the link to the WONDERFUL art created for this story!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810789).

 

 

 

 

_Memory is a strange thing, it doesn’t work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order._

* * *

 

 

Emma stepped forward with the Dark One’s dagger, she didn't need to think about it. It was what she had to do when darkness enveloped Regina and she waned and diminished with every breath. Maybe it was that she was quick on her feet, maybe it was that she did not think at all when it came to Regina.

 

“No!” The word sounded like was being ripped from Regina’s throat. Emma could see her eyes, even through the swirling darkness. They were wide, desperately fighting to get through to her one last time.

 

“You’ve worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed!” It came out of her as she felt her eyes brimming with tears. Emma wasn't surprised at how much she meant it, how her body seemed to shake with this _urge_ to run straight into disaster.

 

“There has to be another way!” It fell on her ears like a lie, one that Regina screamed out in one last attempt to pay for the past.

 

“There isn’t!”

 

Maybe she said something next. She didn't know, her pulse was in throat. In her ears when she looked away from Regina to see her father holding her mother up. Emma thought she gave them the words they wanted, what they needed before she stabbed the dagger into darkness. She would have smiled as the color returned to Regina’s cheeks if it hadn’t been for the pain. For pain that ran deep under her skin, hot in her blood. That threatened to split her in half. Rib by rib.

 

* * *

 

Emma will bite so hard into her lip that she’ll taste blood, one type of pain to distract from the one that will be tearing her insides out. She’ll beg for her to come already, wonder why the fuck she thought she could do this. But then there will be a sharp first cry that’ll silence everything.

She’ll have a full head of hair, Emma will see it as they lift her out. Dark and thick, nothing like her own. This time Emma will ask to hold her, hold her like she didn’t hold her son before. She will look at her, screaming her lungs out on her naked chest and she’ll cry. Her mother will think she understands, watching both of them as she walks closer. Snow will believe this is where it ends for her, for them. That this is the culmination of that something that began when Emma was stuffed into a wardrobe.

“Oh, Emma. Oh sweetheart.” She’ll say pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You did it.”  

“ Guess I did.” Emma will reply feeling her daughter’s warmth rest on her.

“What are you naming her?”

She has known all along what her name will be, Emma has had it memorized since she discovered her. She will know it then too, when she puts a hand over her daughter’s back. She will remember it and where the word came from. But another nurse will come in before she gets a word out. She will be dressed like someone from some thirty years ago. She’ll be an old character clinging to whatever life Regina’s curse had gifted her.

“Do you want me to call someone ?” She’ll ask, wanting to be part of this moment that belongs to only two.

“Ma?” Henry asks with his brow furrowed, having caught her somewhere far off.

“Yeah?”

“Mom wants you to call her.”

“Did she say why?” Emma asks with her elbows still on the kitchen counter.

“Beats me,” Her son shrugs, practice for times to come. “Work, probably. What else could it be?”

“Could be all that paperwork that’s sitting under a box of doughnuts.” She tries already knowing that he is sixteen and that a shift has begun. One that she has a hand in and can’t stop.

“Yeah.” He opens the cupboard, the one she had marked as his in this house, takes a packet of pop tarts.

“Healthy pre-dinner snack?”

“Actually..I..was thinking I’m gonna skip dinner.” He runs his fingers through his newly cut hair and looks at her with apparent guilt in his eyes. “I’ve just got a lot of work to catch up on, you know?”

“I know.” Emma replies quietly because it’s Friday night. “Go, those papers won’t write themselves.”

He kisses her temple and it feels like an apology. Emma wants to hold him close, ask him to stay. Say she will order in for a change and have him laugh but it’s too far down this path for that.

He skulks upstairs and Emma can’t help but watch him go. Watch him go like when she first did in a hospital room. She reaches for her phone only to have her thumb hover over the screen, wondering if she’ll call her. Dial her number because it’s faster than finding her. Wait until she hears Regina’s voice say hello , like she wants to add a Miss Swan at the end of it. Almost too good at restraining herself. There will be no call, not when she is counting the beat of the approaching steps she cannot hear.

The front door opens.

* * *

 

“Swan!” Regina yelled, slamming the door close. She wanted her presence to be unmistakable.

Her footsteps echoed in the emptiness of the house her magic built.

“What the hell even is this place?” She taunted her, she thought that would work. Regina didn’t know about time then, she wouldn’t for years. Emma was still trying to understand then, to spread time into a neat line. Where the future didn’t bleed into now and the past didn’t cut her. It failed, like it always did. Like it always would.

Emma watched her from the corner she hid in. Long hair and dressed in red and black. She looked so much like another time, that’s what she thought. Her eyes narrowed and her jaw was set. So much like a memory that had not been made yet. Emma shook her head, trying to make sense of it. Trying to focus on the clicks of Regina’s heels, on the sharpness of them on wooden floors. Too much like a different time, too much like a house that wasn’t a void. She remembers now, begging for someone to take over for in that moment. Maybe something did, maybe it was just another side of her.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, I know you’re here!” Regina snapped at last.

In a blink she was facing Regina, trying to place her eyes somewhere in that neat line where they made sense. It hurt, like stitches desperately trying to keep her skin together.

“Such much anger. Maybe we should bottle it up and drink it.” The words she did not mean, only how she said them. A later time along this path was seeping in and she couldn’t help her smirk. The way it sounded like a tease at the bottom of their stairs one date night years from then. Now it’s harder on her, sitting in a house that still feels hollow but cannot be called that. Not when someone shares her bed.

Regina huffed and followed her. Pressed her, like she would not. Like she would.

“I need to know what exactly is going on here.” She spat out and Emma remembers now that the heat of her anger felt good. Reassuring. “Cursing our memories away, putting on this... ridiculous act.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her owns heels clicked away from Regina. It sounded unnatural to her. But then again many things have felt unnatural since then.

“Do you really want to be playing this game right now?” Emma knew Regina examined all the changes to her, the silver and white tinge to her hair. To her eyelids, the skin that would feel cold to her touch.

“ Why not? I learned from the best.” She replied between her teeth because a thing inside her resented Regina for refusing to understand in that moment. For not taking her anger and nurturing it.

“This isn’t about me.” She snarled to hide how much Emma wounded her. Regina was inches away from her like she could blink space away like she did.  

Her fingers barely grazed her wrist and Regina’s touch pulled at her along with time. Made Emma see not something that was but the memory that would be. It will just be part of their night, familiar and wanted. A reminder that they have the house to themselves, that the stairs will do if it comes to that. Emma tried and tried to distinguish that Regina from the Regina that will be but it couldn’t be done. Same hunger in her eyes and her teeth sinking into her lip to keep from speaking. Emma presses her lips together now, knowing what she did. What she will do. She kissed her because she didn’t know better. It’s what she will do some time from now.

There was no surprise in Regina’s breath when their lips met. There was teeth and closed eyes. It was slow and deep, Emma remembered then what it was like to kiss her like that, even for a first time. It will be like that farther down the path, when Regina will be backed against a wall and Emma will be smiling when she stops for air. Her lips will be pale from everything she will have kissed off them. Regina pulled her closer and the sound of their stumbling bounced off the bareness of the walls. It was all it took to realize it was a mistake, or that it should have been. Stepping away from her felt like a cold knife to her gut. Emma looked at Regina and remembered that there was a soulmate waiting for her and that it was too soon for this tenderness. She hated herself for it.

“Get out.”

“Emma…” Regina looked like she had been slapped but she straightened her jacket and ran her fingers through her hair. Any sign of composure was better than none.

“I said,” It was a slow simmering pain. “Get out.”

“You know where to find me when you’re ready to talk.” Her voice softened somewhat, silk under the edge of a knife.

Emma looked at her one last time before blinking away from her, to hide again. It wasn’t until she heard the door close that she felt something receding, leaving her body bit by bit. Like paint dripping off a brush. The Dark One’s curse, lifted by a kiss that should have been out of order. But time did not leave her. Not when so much was yet to happen.

* * *

 

“Finally,” Regina scolds her as she stands at the doorway. “We said five sharp. It’s five forty-five.”

“Hello to you too.” Emma says untying her scarf from around her neck. She resists the urge to hang it up in the coat ring. It’s not the time for it, even if her fingers already remember the gesture. “Just got stuck with something at the station.”

“Something with a hook attached to its end?” She snipes and Emma knows, remembers that this had been something she had not meant to say. She knows who she is at this moment in time, colorless lips and downcast eyes. A weak sigh is all she can give Regina. “I’m sorry that was...uncalled for.”

“It’s fine. And..uh..no.” She mumbles. “Actually it’s about this whole portal-thing. More people coming in. Blew a hole right through Stefan’s mansion this time.”  

“Not undeserved.” Regina keeps walking ahead of her, it’s her way of avoiding her. “But I can imagine what trouble he kicked up.”

“An hour’s rant on how he’s king and how the newcomers should be arrested for the destruction of his property.”

“Did you arrest him for disorderly conduct?” She opens the door to her study and doesn’t pour out drinks like she used to.

Regina does not even offer, she gestures at the sofa opposite her desk because all traces of their hard fought familiarity are being erased. It’s barely the beginning of their middle and Emma lets that fact wrap around her mind. To soothe, to numb. To not feel this space between them.

“Yeah,” There is an attempt at a smile or the closest she can come to it. “It’s not like he can sue the town.”

“Good.” Silence falls and it sounds like the emptiness in the middle. Regina moves towards her bookshelf and wastes time searching for something she could have easily summoned. All because she cannot look at her. One heavy volume falls into her hands and she leans against her desk to inspect it. “The people today, they’re from the same kingdom as the rest?”

“Probably. Didn’t get to talk to them myself.” Emma drums her fingers on the armrest. “Is that important?”

“I think so. I read somewhere there is a history of bursts of portals in the kingdom of…” Regina bits her lips in frustration. “The name’s slipped my mind.”

Emma breathes in and remembers it. Remembers that she will have their daughter strapped to her back and her sword to her hip walking through forest roads. It will be a warm afternoon and her daughter will be happily babbling and curling her fist around her ponytail. Emma will be smiling then because she will be closer to where she is meant to be.

“Hey baby, see anything you like back there?” She will ask their daughter. She will only kick in glee. “Good because I have no clue where we are.” Though she will know it will not be long until that ceases to be true.

“Lost, miss?” A woman in an orange and purple dress will ask her as they near a fork in the road.

“Yeah, never been great at trekking the woods.” Emma will admit embarrassed.

“Where are you headed?”

“Queen Tiana’s Kingdom?”

“Wonderful. I’m headed there myself,”The woman will wink at her as she too knows all Emma knows. “Laplim et Lete. That’s the name, if anyone asks.”

“Laplim et Lete.” Emma says now, finally breathing out.

“What was that?” Regina asks with her eyebrows raised making her wonder how long she had been gone.

“That’s what it’s called. The kingdom, I mean.” She fiddles with her fingers, knowing that this time Regina cannot avoid the questioning gaze on her. “Heard from it from Louis back at Granny’s this morning.”

“Right.” She says skeptical but she will not push, not like she used to. Not like she will. “It’s a start to understanding this headache.”

Regina hands her the book and her fingers accidentally run on the diamond of her ring. It won’t always be there, not always be this weight on her finger. But she cannot and will not get the words out. Instead Emma looks at the illustrations on the page, an enchanted bayou with magic swirling all around it.

“If we’re lucky we’ll save ourselves a trip.” Regina tells her dryly, like Mayor Mills would have all those years ago. The chill in her voice runs across her skin like cold water. 

* * *

 

The smell of coconut permeated the air and the steam coming from the Regina’s best pot spread a warmth Emma was aching for. She didn’t dare to call it home then but the word still hung in the back of her mind like a bittersweet reminder. Home, but not quite. Not yet.

“Mom, why are you making that face?” Henry asked with a playful glare, knowing just with how much he could get away with at fifteen.

“I’m not making a face.” Regina said as she squirted lime into her soup.

“No, I know all your faces. You are making a face.” Emma told her pointing her spoon at her.

She rolled her eyes in response, not used to being ganged up on. “I just don’t think…”

“Yes?”

Regina cocked her head warning Emma not to interrupt her again.

“That someone like Mrs. Davies is an authority on magical realism, is all.” She took a sip of her wine to hide her distaste. “I wouldn’t trust that text-book of yours either.”

“Are you being a snob, Madame Mayor?” Emma arched her eyebrow.

“There are worse things to be.” The smirk was far too shameless to keep Emma from gazing, taken. “But this has nothing to do with taste. It’s about the integrity of his education which is clearly lacking.”

“Can I get a note to skip her class then?” Henry asked helping himself to more of Regina’s rice as if it would have helped his case. “Since this about integrity and all?”

“No, kid. If I have to sit through town meetings…”

“Excuse me?” Regina interjected and her eyes were shining.

Emma felt fuller then with Regina’s lecturing her on the importance of local government and procedure. Her chest rose and fell steadily just looking at her, knowing it had been weeks since that confession in New York. Everyday was a struggle, she knew that. A struggle to do the right thing despite what her instincts wanted from her. All she could was to bite down her words and take Regina’s hand for the briefest of moments. Tell her she believed in her. Emma could not say she understood what it was to fight every urge, come to measure every word. Because a misstep, even one Emma knew was plotted along a path, felt like it could cost her everything. She ate her soup as their conversation shifted to explanations on the magic of the mundane, as Regina put it. To names Emma had never heard and will barely recognize in the future. She saw it then too, a Friday night dinner like this one. Their daughter holding a staring match across the table with Zelena’s, Henry asking for advice on the Old Kingdom’s customs.

“I’m ordering you a Borges reader.” Regina told their son pretending that he’d conned her into restocking their personal library. It brought Emma back to then. To nearly empty bowls and their son’s cheeks flushed from hot sauce.

“As a start?”

“Don’t push it, young man.” The stern tone she meant to take never made it to her words.

“You’re a big old softie.” Emma teased her with time stepping on her toes.

“Listen…”

Her phone rang and Emma fished it out of her pocket. She wondered if she managed to keep from wincing when she read Killian’s name off the screen. The ringing could have been glass breaking on a quiet night.

“I have to take this. I’m sorry.” She apologized.

They both nodded, excused her without a word. Emma did not miss Henry's piercing gaze on her, like he could see all and right through her. She hurried out of the dining room and said things like _she just lost him_ and _they’re my family_ and they were met with reminders of hell and having just returned from the dead and questions that circled back to him.

“I’ll be right over.” It felt like bile in her throat.

Emma returned to a half cleared table and the door to the kitchen swinging. She grabbed empty glasses and stopped herself short knowing there were hushed voices on the other side.

“Do you think she’s happy?” Henry asked her. The sound of the running sink came after. “Like actually happy?”

“I don’t know, cariño.” Regina sighed and maybe that said it all. “It’s up to your mother to tell us. And you know how she is.”

He waited a beat or two. Emma asked herself how long he kept these questions to himself. When did he begin to track the changes in her expression, the cracks in her voice. Moments when she skipped ahead. How long had it been since he began seeing her with different eyes.

“Are you happy, mom?”

“There are more important things than happiness, I’ve learned.” She meant it and Emma’s knees almost buckled with the weight of failure.

“Like what?” His teenage voice broke. He was hurt, his whole world came undone with one sentence. It’s not an easy thing to bear, Emma knows that.

“Purpose.” Metal clinked against the sink. She supposed that’s what Regina had concluded sitting on Neal’s old couch as her eyes couldn't stop themselves from crying.

“What…” Henry’s voice suddenly became smaller, younger. “What is yours then?”

Emma opened the door, just enough to catch a glimpse of them. Regina sleeves were rolled up and Henry held a dishrag and a ladle. She smiled at him as she shook her head.

“I’m your mother.” Regina booped his nose with her yellow latex gloves leaving just enough soap on his nose to make him laugh again.

* * *

 

Henry has ice cream on his nose, white and soft serve. He’s seventeen, ten and thirty-four all at once. Emma ruffles his hair in time with the watery breeze from the Hudson.

“Ma!” He whines with no worries in his voice. “Stop! You’ll make me drop this and we stood in line for TWO HOURS to get it!” He says indignant in a way that is half hers and half Regina’s. He smiles through it.

“Your fault, kid. I’m not the one who wanted cereal milk ice cream.”

“OK first of all, that’s untrue.” He is smug about it and her heart feels like it’s about to burst. “Second of all, I’m not the one who ordered almost a full gallon of it.”

Emma gives him a playful shove, feeling tears waiting to be born at the bottom of her throat. “Hey, that place has a no judgment policy! It’s on their wall.”

“Yeah. Too bad I don’t have one.” He wipes at his nose and lips and there's that ache, the one she gets when she sees where they are now. Where they will soon be. She knows this is only a deep breath on the path, an Indian Summer. Emma wishes it wouldn’t be, that time wouldn’t happen like this. That it could gift them things without taking first.

“Up for bookstore hopping?” He asks without noticing anything at all.

“You need to stop calling it that.” Emma tells him with a sigh disguising everything else.

“Haven’t you heard, ma? Nerd is cool now.”

“Did your mom tell you that?”  She stuffs her hands in her pockets and lets him walk ahead. He’s getting taller by the second and all she wants to do is make that birthday wish again, open that door again. Just to hear the words _I’m your son_ . It's all she'll hear for sometime.

“No but I’m telling her you said that.” Henry turns around to stick out his tongue at her. Emma pats his shoulder because she wants to wrap her arms around him.

It’s easy to try and just be here, in this weekend that is just theirs. The one she had suggested and Regina had agreed without protest. She’d known why, they’d both known. It’s why she stays behind while Henry walks through rows and shelves in basement stores, marvels at the dust that one volume still has. This scavenger hunt through yellowed and used books is the beginning of his quest. He’s had these questions for so long but he is only beginning to put them into words, Emma knows that. He will tell her later, when his sister is up on his shoulders and it's a cool night out.

“Look at this 1920s edition of One Thousand and One Nights!” He presents the blue and gold cover like a first piece of puzzle that makes sense.

Emma feels the delicate gold leaf at the sides of it and takes it gladly. “Think I can find any untold stories?”

“If anyone can it’s you, Henry.” She tells him as her heart becomes heavier with each thud. “How about I hold onto this while you keep looking?”

He barely nods before he’s rushing down some stairs.

It’s how they drive back to Storybrooke, with bags full of books about hidden and forgotten stories. Gods, monsters, heroes, queens and witches. The Bug smells like old paper and fries. Henry’s socked feet are on the dash and he grows quieter as the miles to Storybrooke become fewer and fewer. They both know why, today they both know what is soon to come. Emma has to wonder if the pit in her stomach is the same as her son’s, but maybe his is different. Less resigned, judging by the way his fists clench around the fabric of his jeans.

“Wish we could do this more.” He mumbles when dusk hits them and they are almost there. There at that place Emma has always seen coming.

She swallows and tightens her grip on the wheel. “Me too.”  

“Maybe mom could come next time.” It’s more of a provocation, his eyes feel challenging on her.

“I don’t think Killi…” Emma chokes out. “Maybe.”

He shakes his head before lying back on his seat in disappointment. He still hasn’t let go of his belief, it’s what continues to burn through them. It’s because of the way he closes his eyes that she decides to say what she should not say, what pushes them apart. What Emma always knew she will say, what she always does when she remembers this moment.

“If you could see you entire life unfold in front of you, would you try and change it?” Emma sucks in a breath stealing a glance at him.

Henry lifts his head and stares at her for a while. Thinking of his answer carefully, thinking of the books in the back seat. He turns to look at the road and becomes determined as the town edges closer and closer.

“Yeah I would.” His voice is deeper with the words.

“What if there is an order to things? A time?”

‘Does it matter?” The kid is too smart for his own good, catching the threads of her meaning. So much like Regina. “Can’t you just fight it?”

She bites her lips because it’s what she struggles not to do every day, binds her fists because of what is to come. What will become of them, they can’t lose that. Emma knows she will always choose this, this ache inside her so that they can have birthday wishes for daughters that have yet to be born. So that Regina can grin as she slaps their hands away from a hot tray.

“What if you can’t?”  Her mouth becomes dry as she asks it.

“A hero would.” He tells her and she can’t look because this time his voice sounds broken. “A hero would always fight.”

“Is that how you see me?”

Henry shrugs and folds into himself like he does at that house that she can’t call hers.

“Kid, sometimes I’m a hero,” She tries not to shake with the words. “Sometimes I’m just your mom.”

“Yeah.” It’s bitter as the Welcome to Storybrooke! Sign approaches. “Sometimes.”

This is the moment she had pinpointed as her everything being crushed, when her son won’t look at her. She lets silence linger in the air because the alternative is collapsing. She pulls up on Mifflin Street and finds Regina waiting on the path. Emma remembers her on the first night, tear stricken eyes and short hair. She sees her how she will be, with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders as Emma carries their daughter inside when the air still smells of fireworks. Henry wastes no time in pulling his stuff out of the backseat, piling everything on himself.

“Well, someone put his allowance to good use I see.” Regina greets them with a half smile.

“Couldn’t let hipsters keep all those books to themselves.” Henry shakes his head and kisses her cheek. “Hi mom.”

“Don’t you need help with those? So you don’t get a hernia?” Emma tries to keep the shattered pieces of her voice together because Regina is watching.

“Nope. I got it.” He replies turning his back on her. “Bye, Emma.”

“Henry…” Regina calls after him, it was meant to be commanding.  But it was always going to wilt into a plea.

“Regina, it’s OK.” She rubs the spot between her eyes as she leans against the car. “It’s not his fault.”

Regina takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for just a moment. “He’ll come around.”

“Yeah.” Emma wipes at the tears in her eyes because Regina shouldn’t have to see this, there are things she does try and change once in a while. She always fails.

She quietly steps next to her, shoulders barely touching. “Change is always hard, no matter what kind. He’ll adjust.”  

“Will he?”

“He wants you to be happy,” Regina whispers. “It doesn’t make it any easier though. Just give him time.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?” Now it’s Regina who wavers on her words.

“Want me to be happy?”

“It’s all I want for you, Emma.” Regina takes her hand like she will when they’re out at dusk again. “Doesn’t matter if it's with a washed up pirate.”

She laughs because she remembers how soft her kisses will turn after bickering, how it will not always be this want for them. Not always talks of happiness and the bumps along the way.

Regina squeezes her hand one last time before leaving her side and Emma stays at this place outside their house. Feeling the skin that will be covered by a second ring, already remembering how it feels to wear it.

* * *

 

That new weight is on her finger, cold and golden, heavy enough to have made her wander away from the crowd.

The wood paneling barely muffles the music as Emma walks down the hallway. The same tired 80s song will be playing then too, a few months from now. Maybe it will be played at a stranger's wedding too. She picks up her dress, hating how fragile the lace feels in her fingers. Emma can’t stand how gentle it is around her neck, it’d made her sick since she’d known it would be the dress. White and a someone’s idea of her, but there was little point in fighting time. Her breaths are shallow, like they will be in that motel, weak with anticipation. Her feet trip in her rush to find the door she needs. There is a moment’s hesitation before she opens it, Emma will doubt just the same under the yellow light outside their room. Regina gasps as she comes in, her hands are quick to brush off her tears.

“Emma,” Regina says now and she will say then. “What are you...shouldn’t you be out there?” Her hair is shorter now and her dress is all clean lines even sitting on a bucket.

She shakes her head taking in the room, a cramped diner storage. Pickle jars lining the shelves above them, sacks of flour and empty glass bottles. Their room then will be shades of green and quiet except for the hum of an old window unit. Regina will be looking at her like this, with a wary look in her eye.

“They won’t even know I’m gone.” Emma tells her quietly as she shuts the door.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She says as she stands up and her gaze is fixed on her. “It’s your wedding. The bride gone missing is bound to…”

“Today,” Emma’s voice breaks just as the gentleness of the lace around her neck begins to choke her. “Isn’t about me. Is it?”

Regina’s expression molds into recognition and just for a moment Emma believes she can see through time too. Emma can see it in the lines of her face, the wince of hidden pain that doesn’t come. There is no good answer to that question, she knows that. It’s why Regina reaches for her cheek, taking her breath from her. Her dress tightens over chest and the covered buttons her mother had loved dig deep into her skin. She could bleed from it. Emma’s eyes water as she leans into Regina, like she always knew she would. Like she will when she’s wearing cut offs and her legs are covered in mosquito bites.

“What can I do?” Regina whispers.

“Get me out of..get me out.”  Emma struggles as she sees time change back and forth and feels it squeeze her now. “I can’t breathe.. In this. I can’t..”

It’s magic that cuts her free, careful and deliberate magic that runs down her back tearing her dress apart. The air hits her bare skin and she remembers how the hairs at the back of her neck will stand not too long from now. It’s Regina’s hands that steady her as she kicks her shoes into a corner, it’s her arms that hold her up. She’s so small, Emma thinks now and then. Regina is warm around her and she can’t help but soak her in. Bury her forehead at her neck, close her eyes to see that night too. The nights that will come after it. She’d missed her, is what Emma wants to say. Missed what Regina will later tell her orange blossom and coffee scenting her chest. But she can’t, not yet. Not before Regina can understand. It’s how she finds the strength to step back and look at her because it’s all she can do before she kisses her. It’s not chaste, it was never going to be anything but desperate. It won’t be closed lipped and sweet. There is nothing sweet about a storage room, nothing will be chaste about a motel room in the middle of Summer.

“We shouldn’t.” Regina hisses in spite of her darkened eyes. “For God’s sake you’re marr…”

“Regina,”Emma breathes in and begs like she didn’t that night at the empty house. There isn’t a dark curse to stop her from doing it now. “Please. Just...please.”

Her shoulders relax and Regina’s fingers find hers. One night that will be like many others Regina will be rubbing lotion onto her hands and tell her that maybe she’d understood then even if she hadn’t known. She’d felt something, an invisible pull that she hadn’t been willing to fight, she will say. Emma can see it now, as Regina brings her closer. Just the corner of a smile and searching eyes and it’s when she first learns their daughter’s name. Here with flour settling on Regina’s hair as they fall together. It will come back to her when the springs of an old bed meet them and the ice she’d gone out to get is melting on the nightstand. She lets Emma undress her, here and there. Lifts her body so that her underwear can slide down her legs, smiles into the kisses forgetting time altogether. Regina is careful with her touch and Emma could cry at the memory of it. Light, afraid to leave a mark. Emma wonders if it’s love that mixes with magic at the tip of their fingers, if that is what does it. Not now, but then. When her skin is sunburned and Regina’s is tanned and they ache with something else than the day’s hike. If it’s that what makes their daughter begin to glow inside her. If it’s the hand that tucks a strand of hair behind an ear, circles being thumbed on skin. Anything but the words they won’t say yet.

Time settles again when mic feedback screeches in the distance interrupting the music outside. Regina’s breath hitches and Emma drops her head, already feeling the way her perfume will linger on her skin for hours.

“You need to go.” Regina tells her.

She doesn’t yet budge an inch, arms holding her above Regina who is shining with sweat.

“Emma,” Her fingers lift up her chin so that their gaze meets. “Go.” There is only guilt in her eyes and Emma will ask herself slipping into her bra the next morning at the motel if Regina had only reflected hers.

All she can do is nod and let Regina wipe the lipstick off her. Force her own magic to stitch her back into her dress, re-straighten her hair. Make her feet pinch inside her heels. Emma takes one last look at her, pulling up her pantyhose and avoiding her eyes. Her hands go to lie on her womb that is not yet full and her smile will not come for some time. The air is cold when she steps out.

* * *

 

She shivers with the breeze, too cold for a September night. Emma knows deep in her bones that the way her hair is on edge out here has little to do the air. Her legs dangle at her son’s castle, he’d asked to meet her here. His message had popped up in a white bubble and she had jumped to this moment, where she waits for him with her heart in her throat. With their daughter, a secret, growing inside her. Henry drags his feet through the mulch to get to her, hands stuck in his pockets. Regina hadn’t seen him go, she can tell, judging by how thin his shirt is.  

“Hey ma.” He greets as he climbs to the top of what used to be his fort.

“Hey kid.” Emma tries to smile like the mother who doesn’t already know the exact words he will be speaking. “Why the covert location?”

Henry laughs in a gentle and deep way and she wants to bury her face in her hands.

“For old time’s sake?” It’s a white lie but she takes it as she nudges his ribs. The house people call hers is too foreign, too big. One too many people.

“Maybe if you’d remembered your jacket you would have had room for walkie-talkies.” Her nails dig into her palm.

“Ma…” He says with the tone that begs her to not make this more difficult than it has to be. “I want to talk to you about something.”

“Sounds important.”

“It is.” Henry breathes in like he does whenever he gathers his courage. “I’m leaving Storybrooke.”

“Oh,” Emma tries to remember her words, what she knows she will say. But it’s hard to see time unravel and come together in front of her, harder than it’d felt before. Her chest hurts and salt pricks the end of her eyes. “Not...going to Storybrooke College after all?”

“I,”He hesitates and bumps his knee with hers. “Don’t know how to tell mom but uh...I don’t think I’m going to college at all.”

She laughs as strongly as she can. “And you want me to be back up? You haven't even sold me on it yet.”

“No back up, ma. I don't know, I guess.” His fingers drum on the wood. “I wanted to tell you about this first. I..want to visit the other realms.”

“You mean going back to the Enchanted Forest?” Each passing second feels like a million paper cuts on her skin.

“Not just that.” He finds his footing in the midst of all his questions. “You know how there’s thousands and thousands of stories? Across time and places? And some get to paper and others never do but that…”

“Doesn’t make them any less real.” She completes not being to help herself with time. Not when the flag atop this castle flaps just like another and Henry will be a man. They will be on a balcony overlooking a garden at dusk. It will have been a day since Emma found the castle. She won’t be able to stop looking at him, grown and with strong features that will have shaped themselves into kindness and happiness. He’ll be watching the rest of their family spread out on the grass. A cross-legged Regina with their daughter on her lap, his own daughter holding up the best of her toys to her. His wife will wave at them with Tiana by her side.

“How long has it been?” He will ask tentatively as he waves back.

“For me? A little under two years.”

His expression will drop and he’ll clear his throat.

“Ma...God. I didn’t mean to..” Henry will seem younger, like the struggling boy he used to be. “I lost my way and then years had gone by and I didn’t how time worked here until mom showed up and...I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey. Kid.” Emma will take him his arm and make him face her. She’ll wish he were still waist high so that she could kneel down and take him in her arms. “ There’s nothing to be sorry about.” Looking into his eyes will be enough. “Have you seen them down there? We’re OK. We’re pretty great, actually.”

Henry will give her that same piercing gaze, the all knowing one. Emma will smile in way of explanation and he’ll wrap his arms around her.

“I missed you, ma.”He’ll squeeze her arms and press his forehead against her hair. “So much.”

“You have no idea.” Emma will manage to choke out against his shoulder.

The castle flag will flap with the wind and dusk has turned to night again. Henry is still a boy.

“Yeah. I just don’t understand,” He sighs into the dark. “Storybrooke doesn’t make sense anymore. The book…”

“Us?” Emma dares to ask, wanting to throw her ring so hard that it hits the water.

His arms go around her and it’s the only answer he has for her.

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Tell that to your mother.” She cries and it’s too far along to care to be embarrassed by it.

“Only if you do it first.” He teases for what feels like the last time.

* * *

 

The day he goes the town is quiet after. Emma doesn’t see him go, only says her goodbyes at her front door and presses her old necklace into his hands. The day he goes she locks the door and soaks in the milky white water of her bathtub. She blinks and blinks to make time come to her, to let her see his face. Soft, sharp and even clean shaven, her baby boy. But she discovers with her hair sticking to forehead that it does not work like that, time doesn’t stretch forward and backwards as she sits. Not even if she begs, not even if she summons her magic. The water bubbles with her efforts and still, the room is the same pale grey it always is. This bathroom stays the same, it doesn’t suddenly become Regina’s. Emma desperately wishes she could wield it instead of being one with it, instead of it just happening. Instead having things be right at her grasp and being forced to let go, to miss them so much her insides hurt. To ache for memories that haven’t been made yet. Maybe someday she’ll ask whoever was responsible for deciding her fate why it was pain that made her a hero.

There is a knock on her door, two fingers rapping on wood. Emma knows instantly who it is.

“Emma, honey. It’s your mom.” Snow says softly through the door.

She doesn’t reply, just lies against tub.

“Killian called me.” She tells her in way of explanation. “He says you’ve been here since this morning.”

“What time is it?” Her voice is thick and raspy.

“Half past six.” Snow replies as gently as she can, as to try not to shame her.

Emma turns her hands over in the water and sees them wrinkled and colorless. It must be true, she realizes. She tries to remember if there’d been a hook on the door, if the knob had been rattled at all. It’s impossible to tell and it’s best if that non-memory goes down the drain with the milky water.

“Do you want to get some dinner?” Her mother asks. Emma can tell she has her head pressed against the door, wishing she’d just let her in. “It’s gourmet night at Granny’s.”

“Yeah.” She agrees after a bit. Her knees are wobbly and the whole of her heavy. Like the water has managed to weigh her down.

Emma wraps a towel around her body and finally opens the door. Only Snow stands there, no flashes of things that will be. Just her concerned expression and hands that want to hold her. Her mother smiles weakly and leads her into the bedroom that doesn’t feel like hers.

“I’ll wait downstairs while you get dressed.” Emma imagines this is the voice she uses on her brother or the one she has never quite perfected on her. She doesn’t know and doesn’t question it beyond this. Beyond picking a grey sweatshirt and buttoning stretched out jeans. Her feet go bare on old sneakers and the ends of her hair have water running off them. It’s what now looks like without time pulling her forward, living with what it takes away.

The walk to Granny’s is quiet, just like the rest of the town. Emma wonders if it’s heart broken too. She knows it only seems this way because there is only one other person who feels the shards running in her blood like she does.

“I know it feels like he’ll be gone forever.” Snow tells her after she’s ordered for both of them. “But I promise you…”

“That he’ll be home for Christmas?” Emma laughs into her soda.

“He could be!” It’s that blind optimism in her eyes, the faith of someone who doesn’t know what’s to come. It’s the last thing she needs today. “You’ll see.”

“Guess so.” She mutters and just lets her eyes watch her. Emma does next to nothing to ease her off her concern. Swirls the ice in her glass with her straw and avoids looking at her. It’s something she can afford, something she’s entitled to when she’s stuck here. With her mother who thinks she can decipher the lines in her face, the tapping of her fingers because she lost her too once upon a time.

The burger doesn’t taste like anything but she remembers her daughter, barely the size of a quarter. It’s why she dunks half of her fries in ketchup and sprinkles vinegar over the rest. It’s all she’s eaten today. She wishes, for the first time, she were twenty-seven and close to dozing off on her second hand couch. Kicking off her shoes was the solution to every problem, back when she hadn’t known she could lose so much again. Her shoulders hunch, like she’s expecting rain with clear skies as they leave the diner.

“Maybe you’d like to stay over at ours?” Snow offers wrapping an arm around her. “I know Killian has the night shift.”

“I’m OK mom.” There is a squeeze on her arm that presses her for the truth. “Really. Kid left home, it was always gonna hit me like this.”

“But if you need anything at all, you’ll call me. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, it’s Regina!” She mock whispers and part of her believes that the timing of this had been orchestrated.

There isn’t a crease to her dress or blazer when Emma looks at her, with her pulse racing. Her lips are painted between violet and pink and her knees are as weak as they’d been stepping out of the water. Her hair is longer now, longer in the last stretches of daylight.  Regina is frowning at her phone and holding a coffee in the other, maybe determined to be ignored. A trick that doesn’t work on Snow White, she makes it inevitable that they come face to face.

“Snow. Emma. Hi.” Regina says. Emma searches her eyes for hollowness, for any signs that she’d locked herself in her bathroom too. There aren’t any.

“What are you up to?” Snow asks letting go of her.

“I’m just heading home.” She doubts her words just enough that Emma feels the lingering question in the air, _home to what?_

“Just now?” Her own voice is shy because time isn’t letting her remember this moment. Emma knows it’s probably buried somewhere, but it’s folded onto itself in a way that doesn’t let her see.

“I had to make up for...” Regina begins just as her eyes water enough to cut herself short. “There was some catching up to do.”

“Let me walk you home?”

“That’s a great idea!” Snow says and Emma realizes that there had been a plan after all.

She looks between them and puts her phone away. “If it isn’t too much of a bother.”

Emma shakes her head just as Snow bids them both goodbye.

“Your mother…” Regina plays at a closeness she doesn’t feel anymore, Emma knows that much without time.

“Tell me about it.” She sighs looking at her feet.

It’s twenty minutes to Mifflin Street, twenty minutes in which they only keep track of their footsteps. There is too much to say and all of it Emma has to keep to herself. Their arms around each other isn’t a future she remembers anymore, it’s a secret that’s been locked away. Emma wants to say that she can barely walk, that the Autumn air is making her sick and that she hurts all over because their son left to become a man without them. Without her. Instead she hooks her thumbs around belt loops and breathes in, because it’s all now has to offer her.

“That helmet you got him was too big for his head.” Regina snaps suddenly. “It looks ridiculous.”  

“Uh,” Emma is taken aback with some relief. “They only come in the one size, you know.”

“Well, the motorcycle was a terrible idea. He can barely ride a horse, Emma.”

“Arguably, horses are scarier.”

It earns her a glare and Emma is glad to feel an old warmth spreading through her. She could kiss her, not like she has, but like she will. Like Saturday mornings, with eyes half closed and she’s breathing easy.

“I miss him already.” Regina lowers her voice.

“Me too.”

They grow silent again because today is the day their son left and the world should be quiet after it. Regina’s front door looms at the end of the pathway and Emma takes her hand before she can stop herself.

“I know you blame me for this.” She begins now but the words float to then, to another time. Emma will be trying and failing to hold in her laughter, barely getting it down to a snicker. “But she’s at least half you.”  

“This isn’t funny.” Regina will huff, retying the knot holding her silk robe together.

“I agree. It’s hilarious.”

They will be watching their daughter, close to fifteen then, dragging her covers into the kitchen. Her dark hair will be long and free to curl up at night and Emma’s old Zeppelin shirt will still be too big for her. She will be asleep, with her eyes fluttering, as she walks. They will watch her as she opens the fridge and to claim Friday night’s dessert for herself so easily. Their daughter, who will be at least half Emma’s, will stuff her starry night covers into the fridge to replace what she’d taken. Regina will try to move to wake her as she reaches for the cutlery drawer but Emma will hold her back by taking her hand. Regina will lock her fingers with hers then but it’s nothing like the way she pulls her hand away now. Like she’s been burned. Her eyes have hardened to avoid breaking.

“I don’t.” It feels like a lie, one that will stick to the back of her mind. “Henry felt he needed to go and who are we to deny him that?” Her voice is cold as she retrieves her keys and walks away from her. “There is no blame to be passed around here.”

Emma follows her but stops short of the steps leading up her door. Not their door just yet, she isn’t allowed in today. This fraction of their evening comes like another memory and she knows it’s one of those that has to take from her because of what will come. What needs to happen, what she can’t fight.

“I’m pregnant.”

Regina turns to look at her, with her hand still on the handle. “Congratulations.” It sounds like betrayal, like a confession in a cavern of truths. “It’s great news, Emma.”  

“Regina…”

“Get some rest,” She tries to smile, like she had when she’d first seen a diamond on her finger. “You’ll need it.”

The clock tower strikes the change of hour.

* * *

 

The bells inside the clock tower will ring, once, three times. Seven and it will be November, darker with threatening clouds. The heel of her socks will brown and Emma will joke about getting old. A knowing glance will be all it’ll take.

“Don’t you dare.” Regina will mumble blowing on her tea and her glasses set just at the tip of her nose.

“Dare to what?” She will ask with mock innocence admiring the lines around Regina’s eyes.

She’ll roll her eyes and her feet will go on her lap. Bare even in the cold because, Regina had told her in some not yet formed memory, that it’s how she walked as a girl. On cold tile and she would take nothing else.

“And the clock did not move for TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS.” Henry says with eyes wide and his voice clear and bright. “But magic came back when the yellow bug crossed that invisible line!”

“Nah ah.” Their daughter will say with her brow furrowed. “I don’t believe that.”

Henry will be genuinely shocked that a four year old would reject his words with all the conviction of the world. He will look at them for advice, his own daughter has never, would never, he will want to say. Regina will be pleased and only her cup will hide the smugness of her smile.

“Don’t look at me for help, kid.”

“Mamá says to never trust what you hear.” She will tell him determined with a blue crayon in her hand.

“You can trust your brother, tesoro.”

“Okay…” She will be her idea of skeptical, a carbon copy of her mother. “Go on, Henny.”

“If you’re looking to start a dynasty, mom...”

“Only if it’s what she wants.” Emma will know that tone, light but carrying the weight of lifetimes with it.

Emma’s hand will wrap around her ankle, an old gesture of comfort. She will scratch lightly at her skin and lay back her head against the cotton of the sofa, expecting the rain that will come. It’ll come, a storm. Sudden and loud.

* * *

 

Thunder ripples cutting through David’s frustrated sighs over screws and pieces of wood. A week ago he’d had shown up at her doorstep with paint cans with a neutral color because she had not given up one of the last remaining bits of her secret. It’s a daughter she will be having.

“I swear this seemed easier last time I put it together.”

“That’s because last time you put it together,” Emma tells him from the rocking chair she knows had come from Regina but her mother insisted it’s an antique of Gepetto’s. “It was actually me.”

Her father laughs and ducks his head. Emma knows what it is what he had wanted to say but never would. It should be a husband putting this together. It should have been a husband getting beige all over his jeans, it should be a husband caring. She has never wanted to explain it,  Emma only fiddles with her ring whenever her mother asks how Killian is doing, if he’s excited about the baby.It reaches the tip of her finger when Regina casually drifts into dinner conversations, in mentions of roadwork and those portals that seem to be finally closing.

“Pass me the screwdriver, Em” David holding two wrong pieces together.

“Dad, you really don’t need…”

He shoots her a look, one that tells her that he is her father after all. Emma leaves the rocking chair holding her womb now, she will not be then. It will creak on the hardwood floors like it does now, none of its luster gone. Emma will look at it, with her sleeping daughter at her chest, and decide it is the one thing she wants to keep from this house. There will be two bags waiting for her by the door, their lives should hold more than that. They will not, not as long as they lived in this house she had snapped into existence when time had turned her hair white and her skin paler.

“Ready when you are, Em.” David will come into this room, sleeves rolled up. Emma will remember they have the same eyes when she sees his are breaking, wondering if he should have known. If there was something he should have done for his baby girl.  “Emma?” He calls her name, tilting his head to the side.

At this point she no longer wonders how long she has being peering into then, standing with a vacant look in her eyes.

“Sorry. Pregnancy brain.” She shrugs her shoulders as she hands him the tool.

Emma settles in Regina’s chair again and watches him work. Nothing will be said how months from now they will be standing in the street, lights becoming brighter by the second. Her father will be leaning against the chair as he holds his granddaughter. Emma will raise her hands and take a deep breath. The house will be gone when she breathes out.

 

* * *

 

A single portal refuses to close completely, stubborn is what Regina calls it. Emma think it’s just like her, waiting for Regina.That it can sense what needs to happen. She will never truly understand what’s become of her, how time jumps forward and backwards as she stands still. Maybe she and it are made of the same stuff, maybe she has the same furious energy behind her eyes. It’d felt that way when it first began, silver and red, like a waiting portal. Waiting for time to catch up with it.

Regina has kept a secret of her own, it’s quiet and only visible in traces. In the way her eyes narrow and her words tighten whenever she cannot avoid Emma, cannot avoid looking at the way she’s swollen. There is a countdown running in her head, Regina will confess from what sometimes feels an eternity away, a countdown until the day a baby is born. Until she cannot bear to look at her, think, hate to believe that this their ending. Her secret lies behind the door to her study, in her vault. In open books about realms and reading the dog-eared books Henry left behind. Gods, witches and monsters. Their son’s footprints. Emma hides it behind a smile that gets weaker each time, she knows more than Regina has allowed her. She has a countdown of her own and it will end before Regina’s. Every sunrise gets her closer to that day. All she can do is lie on her side and feel their daughter move as she watches it come.

“I’m going to find Henry.” Regina tells them before that day. “I’m going to find my son.”

She isn’t pacing, she is standing still with her arms crossed. Immovable object.

“Regina, it’s been less than a year.” Snow says gently, not knowing what is that she does by smoothing down Neal’s hair in front of her. “If there was trouble…”

“What? You’d know it? Feel it?” She shoots with venom she hasn’t used in years. “I’m going. I need to go.” Emma supposes she can’t help looking at her. She knows what Regina won’t tell them, it’s her purpose she chases after.

Emma burns under her gaze, her nostrils are flaring. It’s easy to recognize from years back when they had been in each other’s face and it’d been a challenge. Regina wants her to contradict her, to prove her wrong. To grab her by the wrist and tell her she isn’t going, not alone anyway. Be the unstoppable force. But time demands that she stay in her seat and nod feebly. She can’t even chase after her the moment she walks away from the loft.

The end of her countdown bring hers to an abandoned warehouse, to hide behind a pile of junk. Regina can’t know she’s here, not yet. Not when another thing has to be taken from her. She arrives dressed in a deep green, polished heels believing she will find their son still a boy when the portal opens. When it does Emma’s nails dig into her skin to keep from calling out to her. Like she never will. Scream, beg that she does not leave her behind. Their daughter kicks sensing her distress, time can never tell her if she’s crying at this moment. The portal is round and bright, cutting into the metal of the warehouse. It looks like a painting hanging in the air, with a forest inside it. Regina breathes in, like she were about to take a dive into a pool, and takes a step forward.

Emma will be watching her then too, she won’t be able to hide her grin. Her hand will rest on the mossy bark of a tree in the bayou. Regina’s hair will be braided to a side and she will look more like a gardner than a Queen. With a wicker basket hanging from her wrist and a small knife loose in her grasp. Her skin will be some shades darker from the Sun but she will not be singing.Just whispering as she kneels to cut a leaf or two. The air will smell of mint and rosemary and the sky will be that pink that doesn’t exist anywhere else. Emma will take a step forward, snapping a twig in half. Regina will conjure fire to her hand, any appearance of peace removed from her expression as she turns to find her standing there.

“Hey.” Emma will sigh into the word, like she once did.

“Hey.” Regina will echo her, dumbstruck and dropping everything in her hands. “Emma?”

“Ma! Get!” Their daughter will fuss and ask with her tiny hands to be brought to Emma’s arms, to get a closer look at who she already will seem to know.

“Is that what you wanted huh, baby?” Emma will tickle at her bare feet as she unstraps her, knowing it won’t be too long before her voice breaks.

Regina will be rooted in her spot, like she would if suddenly confronted with an apparition. Her hands will be tightly clasped together, keeping her from touching to what she will think she has no claim to.

“How are you here?” It’s what she will ask her and Emma will see the years she has lived without her on her face. “When did you…?”

“Not too long ago. A few months maybe.” The tension in the air will be about to break then, as Emma approaches her. “Walking takes forever and you would not believe…”

“Why did you come?” Regina will be trying her hardest to remain firm, her fingers will be careful to catch any of her tears. Her breaths will be short and unsteady by then. “ Emma. Why…” It will sound strangled, nearly ten years for her and it will not feel enough in that moment.

It will have to be Emma who breaches the space between them, the one she had allowed to get so wide.

“I had to come find you,” The truth finally pouring out her will make her own eyes shine and her words too fragile. “I need my family. We do.”

Their daughter will sit up, knowing it’s her she will be talking about. She will reach for Regina before she has time to ask her questions, to try and make them sound like sharp accusations. Regina will be powerless when faced with her gurgling and dark bright eyes. She will be in her arms in the passing of a second.

“Hola, tesoro.” Regina will whisper as their daughter hands will explore her features with no grace, melting the smile out of her. “What did you name her?”

“Esperanza.”

“Hope?” It will come with a breath from her.

Their daughter will laugh delighted at the sound of her name and Regina will not be able to help her thumb at her chin.

“That’s what everyone calls her.” Emma will only half laugh as Regina searches her face for an explanation. “Try getting Storybrooke to pronounce it.”

“I feel like I’m missing something here.” Regina will find the curls at their daughter’s temple as she speaks. “And you know how much I hate that feeling.”

Emma will know what to do, the only way that there will no doubt of her. She will rub their daughter’s back as softly as she can.

“Hey baby, wanna show mama that thing you did the other day?”

Hope will be nearing a year old but she’ll know what to do because she’ll be theirs.Only theirs.

“Emma, she’s an infant what exactly is she…” Regina will fall silent as their daughter calls forth Emma’s magic, white as it leaves her finger tips and golden when it reaches their daughter. Regina’s will follow, violet quickly turning red around her. Hope will weave them together like she were playing a game. True love will be in her nature, in her make up. It will make the brown in Regina's eyes look golden, her whole face radiant.

“She’s mine.” She’ll a kiss on her brow as she sways with her, as to warn the whole universe that this is hers and cannot be taken.

“At least half.”

Emma can hear Regina’s reply to that in her memories. It’s faint and over taken by the burning energy of the portal. The warehouse has replaced the bayou and the air only smells like the sea. There is another step and another until the green of the forest has swallowed Regina. Emma is left there beginning to count the days until she is here again. Ready to go.

* * *

 

There are three separate piles of things on the bed, _take, leave, maybe._  Her parents’ loft is noisier and tighter than it used to be, it makes David joke about moving into a shoe for extra room. Hope is safe guarded between three pillows and is happy to bounce with the mattress every time Emma sets something down.

“What do you think baby? Think you’ll want the duck AND the rabbit in the Enchanted Forest?”  Emma holds up the stuffed animals and she only gets delighted kicks in return. “That’s a yes, I think.”

She does her best with preparations with books she had taken from Regina’s vault, packing everything she wouldn’t be able to conjure up along the way. It will all have to fit in a pouch that’s no bigger than a diaper bag. There’s a subtle knock behind her and Hope squeals in delight.

“Mom you don’t have to knock,” Emma tells her as she turns. She hears herself sound lighter than she has in months. Years. “There isn’t even a door.”

“I know,” Snow sighs as she comes to sit on the bed. “I was hoping we could talk.”  

She nods as she folds her own baby blanket into a neat square. Time doesn’t need to tell her what this is about, she can see it in the way her mother examines her few chosen things and places a hand over Hope’s head. Snow smiles because that’s what she knows to do best, it’s how she has unknowingly made Emma fold over the years.

“Do you have to go?”

“Yeah,” It sounds meaningless like there’s no weight behind the word. “ I do.”

“Why?” Her voice breaks and Snow doesn’t fight it.

“Mom…” Emma sighs as she sees Regina reflected in their daughter’s expression. “I think you know why.”

“But, God. I don’t know even how to say this.” But Emma knows she will, has known since before she returned to this place with two suitcases and a baby in her arms. “Aren’t we...aren’t we enough?”

She joins her on the bed and searches for the right words to say. The ones that have been stuck in the back of her mind since the darkness let her see how her life stretched forward and backwards across time.

“It’s not about enough,” Emma begins as she rubs her thumb over Hope’s foot. “It’s about...an order to things. Setting it right.”  

“Hasn’t it always been?” Snow asks in a whisper.

She’s thinking of the road to the underworld and proposals. Of a wedding and a marriage that should have meant something because these things always mean something to her. Emma knows she can’t see time like she can, can’t see something beyond this precise moment. Can’t know how _wrong_ can feel under her skin, down to her bones, when a vision of the future shows her a glimpse of what _right_ will be. Can’t understand what it’s like to stand frozen because time floods into her like memories to remind her to keep going, that things will come to pass. No matter what this second might look like. How much it might hurt.

Emma shakes her head in reply and takes a deep breath. “Not really. But we’ll get there.”

* * *

 

“Has she walked?” Regina is lying on her side and Emma has her arms around her. They’re watching their daughter sleep. Even breaths and her fist wrapped around Regina’s finger.

“Not yet,” Emma knows what she’s really asking. She wants to know how much she’s missed. “Crawls like crazy though.”

“I bet she does.” Regina laughs taking in every detail of Hope that belongs to her. The bridge of her nose, the shape of her eyes. The shade of her skin. “She’s been giving you hell, hasn’t she?”

“I have the scrapes to prove it.”

There’s that quiet awe that has them both smiling in a cottage behind the castle. There is something here, something that maybe looks a lot a life that had been wished for. Emma presses her lips to her neck and sinks into the warmth. Into the smell of mint in Regina’s hair. It’s not a moment that will be over too soon, not one that will have her wishing for another time. It feels right under her skin, down to her bones.

“I wish you would have told me.” Regina says with something that’s not quite anger or resentment.“I wouldn’t have..I would’ve..” It’s that old need of hers to want to share the pain, to shield her from any suffering. Guilt that she did not, could not.

“You couldn’t have.” Emma holds her tighter. “I didn’t let you.”

“Idiot.” The fondness behind it makes her chest rise in a contentment that had felt so distant for so long.

“Did you know that was her first word?” She teases her and gets a kick to the her shins for it.

“It was not.” Regina carefully slides her finger from Hope’s hold to lightly run it over her lips. “How did we manage to do this?” It’s barely there but Emma can hear it. The question of being deserving of this. Time doesn’t heal a wound like that.

“I don’t think it matters,” Emma tells her as firmly as she can because it’s the truth. “We just did.”

Regina knows about time now, knows about moments that slipped from her grasp like water. Others that stayed longer than anyone intended. The fucked up path of the order of things. She’d laughed through her tears when she’d understood. What it took to give them this. Regina sits up, eyes intent on never leaving her again.

“We’re here now. That’s all that matters.” She says like the realization is washing over her again. Regina’s smile feels small against her lips when she kisses her, glad to be seen. Emma closes her eyes as she breathes her in. Thinks of when she felt it, like a memory. When time first took her.

* * *

 

She felt a smile on her lips as she looked at the broken look on Regina’s face. She didn’t understand. Emma saw her through the surrounding darkness, torn apart over the mere thought of sacrifice. But there was that gentleness on her lips. Her eyes began to see too much, taking her past the point of splitting pain. Emma saw it all. Heard it. Felt in her blood, settling between her bones. She’d thought the darkness could be something that could be taken from her, plucked like a feather. It wasn’t. It was like being born, being ripped so violently from everything she’d known. It was like a bone crushing death too. A life lived in seconds.

It felt like it stretched forever. Some memories weighed on her shoulders and others were like smoke. Everyone looked so afraid, afraid of what would become of her. They didn’t know this was a beginning. Emma’s vision became clouded with middles and endings, moments that came as quickly as they left. They were wrapped around Regina like a soulmate was. If time weren’t with her, pulling and folding her like an old sheet of paper, Emma could have stayed in Regina’s eyes. Mouth a revelation to her.

Emma’s feet grew weaker on the pavement as Regina watched her. The words echoed in her insides,  _We’re here now. That’s all that matters._ A lifeline thrown at her from another time as she completely lost her footing. All that was left was to close her eyes and let time take her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Writers and artists spent months creating the fics and art you enjoy - it would mean the world to them if you commented to tell them what you liked! The SQSupernova team is also sponsoring a contest for commenters, and you can find out more [here](http://sqsupernova.tumblr.com/post/177527168129/the-swan-queen-supernova-comments-contest-returns).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Nature of Daylight [Fanart]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810789) by [cesibear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cesibear/pseuds/cesibear)




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